The suicide of Louis Jeunet on the express train to Rotterdam is a matter of great concern to Commissioner Maigret. A suit soaked in blood was found in the dead man's suitcase. Maigret comes across three men who once studied together with Jeunet: the export merchant van Damme, the bank director Belloir and the painter Lombard. Soon the inspector finds out that these men are connected by a horrible experience. In a macabre decorated student dormitory Maigret conjures up the past and finds the key to the truth ... Based on the second novel of the Maigret series: Le pendu de Saint-Pholien (1930), published in German translation under the title Maigret und die Anarchisten and later in a new translation as Maigret und der Gehängte von Saint-Pholien.